[Illustration: Fig. 228.--Solemn Reception of a Bishop. Arrival of St. Gêry at Cambrai, where he was appointed bishop, in 589. View of the city, the ramparts, and the church dedicated to St. Médard, and founded by St. Gêry.--Miniature from the “Chroniques du Hainaut” (Manuscript of the Fifteenth Century), Burgundian Library, Brussels.] [Illustration: Fig. 229.--St. Wulfram, Bishop of Sens, clad in his pallium; died in 720 at the Abbey of St. Wandrille.--From a Miniature in the “Chronicon Fontinellense” (Manuscript of the Ninth Century), Havre Library.] From the sixth century, the influence which the bishops enjoyed under the Roman empire went on increasing. Chilperic I. was alarmed at its progress, declaring that “the bishops alone were supreme in the cities.” Each one administered the affairs of his diocese with sovereign authority (Fig. 228), and, by means of the councils convoked by the kings, they governed the whole of the kingdom. In Gaul, there were twenty-five councils during the fifth century, fifty-four in the sixth, and twenty in the seventh, all of which were composed of bishops, supplemented by a few abbots and priests who were either well-known masters of ecclesiastical law, or eligible upon other grounds. From the diminution in the number of councils dates the decline of the authoritative influence of the French episcopacy; during the eighth century, in the first half of which there were only two councils, it declined still further, because the intrusion of the _leudes_ in several bishoprics had brought about a great change in the austere morals of the ancient Church, replacing the cultivated spirit, the orderly conduct, and the charitable habits of the first prelates (Fig. 229) by a display of gross ignorance and unbridled barbarism. Three successive councils, held respectively in Germany, Belgium, and at Soissons (742, 743, 744), aimed at a reformation of the morals of the clergy, which were thoroughly perverted, as is evident from the decrees of these councils, forbidding the priests to follow the chase with hounds, falcons, and sparrowhawks. Other provincial councils of the same epoch condemned simony, the traffic in the immunities and privileges of the Church, and the plurality of benefices. This last abuse went beyond all bounds; the same prelate would hold three or four bishoprics at once, several abbeys, and the revenues of numerous parishes left without a pastor. On the other hand, many lay lords, who had usurped the property of the Church, and appropriated to themselves benefices, monasteries, and episcopal revenues, especially since the days of Charles Martel, created great confusion in the temporal economy of each diocese.